Mobile operator TIM Brasil closed the first quarter with a subscriber base of 52.8 million lines, up 24.7 percent from a year earlier. Net additions in the three months to March totaled 1.8 million. Revenues rose 13.8 percent to BRL 3.75 billion, helped by 32.3 percent growth in data revenues to BRL 640 million. TIM said it had over 1.3 million daily unique users for data services, while smartphone sales have quadrupled in the past year and SMS traffic is up sharply since its Torpedo offer launched in February. Voice traffic was also up thanks to on-net offers, with MOU rising 27 percent from a year ago to 126 minutes per customer. ARPU was still down 13.5 percent from a year ago to BRL 20.8, due to growing penetration in prepaid and lower incoming revenues. EBITDA reached BRL 1.033 billion, up 9 percent, thanks to a 51 percent cut in subscriber acquisition costs and lower handset subsidies. Net income quadrupled to BRL 213 million from BRL 54.6 million in the year-earlier period, and free cash flow was up 186 percent to BRL 736 million. After capex of BRL 297 million in the quarter, 3G coverage reached 56 percent of the population by the end of March. TIM maintained its budget for full-year capex at BRL 2.9 billion.
